Right, here goes, I've been working on this a couple of hours a night for last few nights and here's the result. 1 Pico L.E.D lighting unit, stand with integrated filter. Bare in mind this is very high light.
Good place to buy your parts from, they do sets (1 led, 1 driver, 1 lens & 1 heat sink) - http
/myworld.ebay.co.uk/led-world2007/&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2754
I used solid oak 3/4 inch thick flooring which I had left over from doing our bedroom but you can use which ever wood you want.
First I mitered at 45 degree angles a small box for the led's, make sure when doing this that you leave enough depth and height to fit the led's, lenses, drivers and heat sinks once together. This was also made to the exact length and width of the tank, mine being 1 litre was 8cm x 12cm.
Next was building the stand, I used the same wood and built like a C shaped piece as shown below. I found some old brackets in my tool box which I used to hold the fixture and bolted them in place as shown below.
Next I sourced a PSU (power supply unit) from one of my old routers, it is 12volt and the drivers are 12-24volt so was fine, also when doing this that you have around 1 amp to play with as you dont want to under power these.
I used a piece of tongue and groove I had to fill the hole in the middle of the lighting box and cut 2 x 22mm holes for the lenses and using a hot glue gun, glued the wood and lenses on place. I hung the box on the brackets low to start with so I could feed the cable through a hole in the back of the stand, into the lighting box and connect everything while still having enough space to do so. Once finished I put two screws on the inside of the box and hooked them over the brackets so the angle can be adjusted still. The connections for the led's are as follows, each of these drivers has two metal pins. These are your power inputs, I took mine off using a soldering iron and soldered my cables straight to the PCB (printed circuit board). It doesn't matter which way round you get these there is no + or - on the PCB. Then from the other end of the driver you'll find a white and pink cable, white - pink +. I soldered these to the led's on the terminals that have the solder already on them as it makes life easier, on each led there will be 3 terminals to solder too so you have a choice and all are marked with a tiny + or -. When connecting the led's to the heat sinks I ran out of patience and used superglue on the edges with a dab of thermal paste on the under side just to make sure, you can buy this on ebay very cheaply too. Once this is done its a simple case of putting everything on top of the lenses and making sure your drivers dont touch inside the box, I glued mine to the sides to keep safe.
Next if you have a pico external filter like mine (there's a write up on here of mine somewhere) I'll try and get it put in my sig, then next I cut two small holes big enough for the inlet and outlet pipes inn the back of the stand at the correct heights so the filter can sit behind the stand out of view and pushed the pipes through.
Next I put the tank in place, primed my filter, and plugged everything in. Here's some pic's of the finished product & a vid.
[b[/b]http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty5ZPSKwxqo[/media]
Good place to buy your parts from, they do sets (1 led, 1 driver, 1 lens & 1 heat sink) - http
/myworld.ebay.co.uk/led-world2007/&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2754I used solid oak 3/4 inch thick flooring which I had left over from doing our bedroom but you can use which ever wood you want.
First I mitered at 45 degree angles a small box for the led's, make sure when doing this that you leave enough depth and height to fit the led's, lenses, drivers and heat sinks once together. This was also made to the exact length and width of the tank, mine being 1 litre was 8cm x 12cm.
Next was building the stand, I used the same wood and built like a C shaped piece as shown below. I found some old brackets in my tool box which I used to hold the fixture and bolted them in place as shown below.
Next I sourced a PSU (power supply unit) from one of my old routers, it is 12volt and the drivers are 12-24volt so was fine, also when doing this that you have around 1 amp to play with as you dont want to under power these.
I used a piece of tongue and groove I had to fill the hole in the middle of the lighting box and cut 2 x 22mm holes for the lenses and using a hot glue gun, glued the wood and lenses on place. I hung the box on the brackets low to start with so I could feed the cable through a hole in the back of the stand, into the lighting box and connect everything while still having enough space to do so. Once finished I put two screws on the inside of the box and hooked them over the brackets so the angle can be adjusted still. The connections for the led's are as follows, each of these drivers has two metal pins. These are your power inputs, I took mine off using a soldering iron and soldered my cables straight to the PCB (printed circuit board). It doesn't matter which way round you get these there is no + or - on the PCB. Then from the other end of the driver you'll find a white and pink cable, white - pink +. I soldered these to the led's on the terminals that have the solder already on them as it makes life easier, on each led there will be 3 terminals to solder too so you have a choice and all are marked with a tiny + or -. When connecting the led's to the heat sinks I ran out of patience and used superglue on the edges with a dab of thermal paste on the under side just to make sure, you can buy this on ebay very cheaply too. Once this is done its a simple case of putting everything on top of the lenses and making sure your drivers dont touch inside the box, I glued mine to the sides to keep safe.
Next if you have a pico external filter like mine (there's a write up on here of mine somewhere) I'll try and get it put in my sig, then next I cut two small holes big enough for the inlet and outlet pipes inn the back of the stand at the correct heights so the filter can sit behind the stand out of view and pushed the pipes through.
Next I put the tank in place, primed my filter, and plugged everything in. Here's some pic's of the finished product & a vid.
[b[/b]http
/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty5ZPSKwxqo[/media]
